It seems that rival Corporate undertakings in Germany and the United Kingdom who would dearly love a share in each otherâs domestic market are just as prepared to engage in commercial warfare as much as their grandfathers were prepared to engage in armed conflict some 60 years ago.

Here, we have an example of how modern disputes are resolved in the Union in the manner anticipated by Robert Schuman and Jean Monnnet when the original Treaty of Paris was signed in 1950 establishing the European Coal and Steel Community which set into motion, a train of events which given us the means to conduct a bloodless conflict under what has evolved under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

A Decision (binding upon the parties whom it is addressed under Article 288 TFEU (ex Article 249 TEC) was recently issued by the European Commission. It arose out of a complaint lodged with the Commission by Deutsche Post AG (formerly the Deutsche Bundespost) on 10 August 2006 alleging State aid measures granted in relation to Royal Mail Group plc (RM) pensions breached the prohibition on state aid under Article 107 TFEU (ex Article 87 TEC).

The alleged measures were, a transfer of Â£850 million to a special account dedicated to finance RMâs pensions, decision by Department of Trade and Industry to increase the amount of a loan granted to RM from Â£844 million to Â£900 million and violation of the Commissionâs decision in case N 166/05 concerning support for Post Office Limitedâs rural network, since Â£150 million was transferred to Post Office Limited directly from the State budget and not, as approved by the Decision, from a special, ring-fenced reserve. Considers the alleged instances of state aid and compatibility with the Treaty.

Commission concluded to the extent that the pensions measure contains an aid element, this was unlawfully implemented by the United Kingdom in breach of Article 108 (ex Article 88(3) TEC). However, the Commission finds that aid to be compatible. The Commission finds that the other measures do not constitute State aid.

Had the decision gone the other way, it would have been a precursor to infringement proceedings taken by the Commission under Article 258 TFEU (ex Art 226 TEC) arraigning the United Kingdom before the Court of Justice of the European Union which, if not complied with, may well have led to further proceedings under Article 260(ex Article 228 TEC).

The decision illustrates, in my opinion, the functional use of discretion by the Commission in arriving, without recourse to judicial proceedings, that such state aid is compatible with the Treaty.

My point old boy is to illustrate for those who may be interested in these things how the EU actually functions in practice rather than allowing the unrestrained promulgation of utter rubbish by the intellectually challenged UKIP and their adherents.

It may, or there again it may not, allow those who hate the EU and all it stands for to at least have an informed opinion and hate it with some form of authority to support their articulation of it.

If it has bored the arrse off you than I apologise but I would hope that you would bear with me in this endevour.